You’re all correct 
and better illumination’s been part of the plan all along. It actually turns out that there was only one working bulb on the old set of clocks, so no wonder I thought it was dark anyway 
After robbing Peter to pay Paul and moving bulbs about, I finally had a full working set. The dash illumination ones are at 9, 11, 1 and 3 o’clock behind little blue covers – and they sort of vaguely brighten things up in a hardly noticeable kind of way 
Perceived wisdom is to not just fit higher wattage bulbs, as they cause more drain on stuff and cause things to short out and have a lower lifespan … or something – look, I just remember people saying don’t do it 
Most likely option is to get some LED wedges to go in the dash illumination and leave the warning lamps as bulbs, as there’s no problem with them.
Eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed, however, that the rev counter on the new clock is for a 6-cylinder engine, as denoted by the “6” on the bottom of the gauge face. It expects six bangs per revolution at the coil, against the four bangs that the Pinto provides, causing it to under-read…
All is not lost, however, as I have a “spare” set of clocks from a 4-cylinder car, so can use the rev counter from that 
The circuit board on the back is shot and has fried itself a couple of times and been repaired, but it was got for spares anyway … plugging it in for a minute shows the difference in the readings…
Between the two sets of clocks then, I can now make up a full working set with a good circuit board and all the bulbs lighting up 
While I’m at it I’ll probably clock the speedo so that the mileage is consistent – not for anyone’s benefit, purely because I want to and it’s easy enough to do, apparently. I know that the mileage I’ve got at the moment is genuine from all the history on the car, so I’d like to keep that counter going 
Right, off for tea – and thanks for the encouragement as ever
EDIT 10/04/2008:
Ratters: well done mate 
merp0: Off for tea! Come on we need more “accurate gauges”.